• Outside of the Lakers organization itself, there might be no greater beneficiary of LeBron James’ signing than Jacob Emrani.

And if you have to ask who that is, you obviously don’t watch much local TV.

Emrani, a personal injury attorney in L.A., is the guy who bankrolled all those “LABron” billboards around town earlier this year. He has capitalized on those in TV ads both before and since the signing, equating his “passion for my favorite team” with his willingness to battle for his clients.

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This is brilliant marketing. Emrani straps himself into the driver’s seat of the Lakers bandwagon – note the framed jerseys in the shots where he’s posing with clients – while never once mentioning the team’s name, the better to avoid trademark infringement.

• Of course, that jingle at the end of his “Call Jacob” ads is already a Top 20 earworm.

• L.A.’s NFL fans caught a break this week, with the Rams and Chargers both playing their exhibition openers on the road. In other words, you are spared having to pay full price to watch the regulars play one series (or less).

Interestingly, both teams are at home in weeks 2 and 3, when starters get progressively more reps (though Sean McVay evidently might be hedging on even that for week 2). And they’re both on the road in weeks 1 and 4, when regulars play either a very little or not at all. Then again, you’re still paying regular-season prices for games that don’t count, usually populated in the second half by players who are fighting for roster spots 47 through 53 and practice squad opportunities.

In other words, this is the ultimate manifestation of the old Jerry Seinfeld line: “You’re rooting for clothes, when you get right down to it. We’re screaming about laundry.”

• True story: Years ago, when the Raiders were in L.A., I had a phone conversation with the late Al LoCosale, who was Al Davis’ loyal lieutenant, and I made the mistake of using the term “exhibition” game.

Thursday was the 30th anniversary of the trade that brought the Great One to the Kings from Edmonton, transforming not only the Kings franchise but the entire hockey map.

Without the Gretzky trade, in SoCal alone, there are no Anaheim Ducks, no AHL teams in the region, and likely much more sparse participation in youth hockey. Consider this legacy, three decades later: Two players raised and trained in SoCal were traded for each other earlier this summer, with the Ducks acquiring Chase DeLeo (La Mirada) from Winnipeg for Nic Kerdiles (Irvine).

• There were plenty of retrospectives this week about the Gretzky trade. But the best accounting of the Gretzky phenomenon – as well as the house of cards that eventually collapsed and landed Kings owner Bruce McNall in prison for five years after he pled guilty to fraud and conspiracy charges – remains a 2009 book by Canadian author/journalist Stephen Brunt: “Gretzky’s Tears: Hockey, America and the Day Everything Changed.”

• The jersey nicknames for the softball jerseys used during baseball’s Players Weekend are out, and we already have a winner.

Last year it was the Mariners’ Kyle Seager, who wore “Corey’s Brother” on his back. This year the Diamondbacks Brad Boxberger is the first to go all emoji: A box and a burger.

• The state CIF office sent a press release a week ago announcing that sports participation at its 1,606 member schools had reached an all-time high for the sixth straight year. You had to look closely, but within that release was a nugget that was striking, though certainly not unexpected: High school football participation decreased in 2017 for the third straight year and sixth time in eight years.

From the 2016 season to 2017, the 11-man game dropped from 97,079 participants to 94,286, a 2.87 percent drop. Add eight-man football and the decrease was 2.85 percent. But there’s a larger trend: From 2006 to 2017, the number of prep football players in California has dropped more than 12 percent, from 109,700 (11-man and eight-man) to 96,374. The only other boys’ sports to lose participants during that span were tennis and wrestling, and neither shed athletes at anywhere close to the rate of football.

Have the moms of California spoken? If you are a parent or athlete who has either opted out of football or opted in, I’d love to hear from you as to why.

Jim Alexander is an Inland Empire native who started with his hometown newspaper, The Press-Enterprise, longer ago than he cares to admit. He's been a sports columnist off and on since 1992, and a full-time columnist since 2010. Yes, he's opinionated, but no, that's not the only club in his bag. He's covered every major league and major sports beat in Southern California over the years, so not much surprises him any more. (And he and Justin Turner have this in common: Both attended Cal State Fullerton. Jim has no plans to replicate Turner's beard.)